For Jews around the world, Oct. 7 and its aftermath have presented a rupture of nearly unprecedented proportions. Jews have reconsidered their friendships, their beliefs, their attitudes about Israel, their place in the broader world — even the prayers and practices that have made up Jewish traditions for thousands of years. In this series, we […]
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This article is part of a series examining how Oct. 7 and its aftermath have changed the Jewish world. You can see the complete project here. Wars and crises shape language, in both profound and mundane ways. World War II gave us terms like radar, spam — and genocide. Military euphemisms like “collateral damage” (the […]
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As a gender historian and scholar of intermarriage, I binge-watched the new Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” with a combination of foreboding and optimism. Depictions of romances between Jewish men and Christian women have been ubiquitous in popular culture since “The Jazz Singer” in 1927 as Jewish men in Hollywood depicted their own lived experiences. […]
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As the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 approaches, the themes of coping with trauma and loss explored in the play “The Goldberg-Variations” are just as relevant now as they were when the play debuted in Vienna more than three decades ago. Written by renowned Hungarian Jewish playwright George Tabori, the backstage comedy set in Jerusalem […]
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“Nobody Wants This,” a rom-com Netflix series starring Adam Brody as a charming Los Angeles rabbi who falls for a blond, agnostic sex and dating podcaster played by Kristen Bell, is based on a true story — kind of. Erin Foster, the creator of the show, is a blond Los Angeles native who found her […]
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For as long as Rabbi Jeremy Fine has been alive, he’s been a fan of the Chicago White Sox. This Opening Day, he hoped that his team would provide a welcome diversion from what has been an excruciating year. Alas, this was not the season. “It was obviously a very tough year for the Jewish […]
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An authors’ panel at an Albany book festival Saturday has been canceled after organizers said two panelists refused to share a stage with the “Zionist” moderator. Elisa Albert, who is Jewish, was set to moderate a panel at the Albany Book Festival on Saturday called “Girls, Coming of Age.” But on Thursday, she received an […]
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Selichot are traditional prayers for forgiveness that are said in the month preceding Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. These ancient prayers are typically sad and self-deprecating, but they can also be cathartic. Just ask multi-hyphenate New Yorker Galeet Dardashti, who’s a vocalist, composer, writer and anthropologist. Earlier this month, on the day the news […]
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday aimed at advancing the restitution of Nazi-looted art, as well as personal property stolen during the Holocaust and other eras of political persecution. The legislation is a response to a court ruling that allowed a work by Camille Pissarro to remain in a Spanish museum instead of […]
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First came the explosions. Then came the jokes. Within minutes of news that several members of Hezbollah were killed and hundreds wounded by pagers that had been doctored to explode en masse, allegedly by Israel, Jews on social media shared memes celebrating the operation and mocking its targets. Examples: A man dressed as an Orthodox […]
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